The Brief

In 2020, with the death of George Floyd still dominating the national conversation over police accountability, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law taking away responsibility for investigating fatal police shootings from local authorities and putting it in the hands of the state attorney general.

Lawmakers reasoned that an independent outside agency would bring more credibility — as well as speed and investigative firepower — to the process while eliminating potential conflicts of interest that can arise when police or local district attorneys have to investigate agencies they work closely with.

Police accountability advocates enthusiastically endorsed the legislation that authorized the switch. Then-Assemblymember Rob Bonta championed it, too. When Bonta became attorney general the following year, he pledged to complete all investigations within 12 months.

He hasn’t come close. The department has yet to close a single investigation within one year.

In fact, a CalMatters investigation found that Bonta’s office has 13 use-of-force investigations that have exceeded three years or longer – well past the statute of limitations for many of the crimes an officer or a deputy could conceivably be charged with short of murder.

The average fatal shooting investigation takes Bonta’s team nearly two years and five months to complete. Just eight of 41 closed cases took less than two years.

The delays take away another potential enforcement tool as well: Once a case extends beyond three years, an officer cannot be decertified, meaning they cannot be prevented from working for other law enforcement agencies.

The time lag leaves families of potential victims waiting for justice and leaves officers in limbo as they wait to be charged or exonerated.

“In my experience, three years is an awful long period of time, especially if you’re starting to come upon statutes of limitations,” said Anne Marie Schubert, the former Sacramento County District Attorney who unsuccessfully ran for attorney general in 2022.

Schubert said she was surprised to see that the last case closed by the program was on a shooting in 2023.

“Is it resources?” she asked. “Is it experience? That’s a question I’d want to know.”

To date, not a single officer has been prosecuted by Bonta’s office, and no officer has been referred for decertification or even discipline after a police shooting investigation.

Bonta blames the backlog on a lack of funding and other priorities from the Legislature. His predecessor, Xavier Becerra, made the same argument just before the law took effect when he requested twice as much money for the investigations than the Legislature provided. On its first investigation, Justice Department employees complained in internal emails that they were undermanned.

Bonta’s office also says nothing in the law prevents local authorities from conducting their own parallel investigations.

But the CalMatters investigation found that as a practical matter, local authorities take a hands-off approach once Bonta’s office steps in.

“If the case meets the criteria under (the police shooting law) and DOJ confirms they are taking over the investigation, we do not do a parallel criminal investigation of our own or do a criminal investigation of our own after DOJ concludes their investigation,” said Capt. Brian Cole, who oversees the detective division at the Redding Police Department. “They have complete criminal jurisdiction of the matter.”

'I didn't see him again alive'

That happened with a Redding case that began on Christmas Day, 2022, when David Couch was taken to jail. Since then, Jeanelle Couch spent three and a half years trying to find out exactly what happened to her son.

By the time David Couch, 31, was released on Feb. 8, 2023, Jeanelle Couch said her son was experiencing a manic episode.

According to a lawsuit Jeanelle later filed, David was given the wrong medication for his bipolar disorder for his entire jail stay. He told her he had spent the majority of his time in solitary confinement, another allegation in the lawsuit.

“He was happy to see us and he asked if we remembered him,” she said about the day he went home. “When I got up the next morning to go to work, he talked to me for a long time and I said, ‘oh, honey, I'm so sorry, I got to go to work now.’

“And then I didn't see him again alive.”

Jeanelle Couch holds photos of her son, David Couch, while standing in Cascade Park in Redding on April 8, 2026.

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Larry Valenzuela

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CalMatters

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Jeanelle Couch holds photos of her son, David Couch, while standing in Cascade Park in Redding on April 8, 2026.

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Larry Valenzuela

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CalMatters

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That afternoon, David sat in his car in his mother’s driveway in a small residential neighborhood in Redding.

At 5:25 p.m., the California Highway Patrol received a call of a driver southbound on Interstate 5 who was brandishing a gun. The make, model and plates matched David’s car.

Nine minutes later, California Highway Patrol officer Ryan Cates pulled into Couch’s driveway.

According to dashboard camera footage, Couch was sitting in his white Ford sedan with the driver’s side door open.

“Show me your hands!” Cates called out. “Put your hands up!”

Couch emerged in a brown hooded sweatshirt, khaki pants and a gray baseball cap, the dashcam footage shows. He was wearing a backpack and gripping his cell phone with both hands. Couch also had a pair of knives strapped to his jacket, according to a Justice Department investigation, but didn’t touch them. Couch took eight steps toward Cates, who had his gun in his right hand, pointed at Couch.

Their initial conversation is inaudible.

Cates raised his gun, holding it now with both hands. Couch came toward him. The dashboard camera was able to record more of their argument, which involved Couch saying to leave him alone, then calling Cate obscenities and saying "shoot." A struggle ensued that was not visible on camera. At least twice, Couch called Cates a slur.

“Get on the ground,” Cates said. “I will shoot you right now.”

According to a Department of Justice report issued last week, Couch then got ahold of Cates’ Taser.

Still frames from a California Highway Patrol video depicting the altercation between David Couch, at right, and Officer Cates. The progression of action is from left to right.

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Image via the California Department of Justice

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Couch continued to berate Cates, calling him a “dirty cop.” The two slid back into view, with Cates holding Couch against the hood of the car, Couch’s face bathed red in the patrol car’s dashboard lights. Cates attempted to put handcuffs on Couch, but Couch slipped to his right and out of view of the dashboard camera again.

“Give me a .45 (caliber handgun) and I’d f— you up!” Couch yelled at Cates.

Cates would later tell Justice Department investigators that he believed Couch was trying to take his handgun.

Then, there were several audible clicks. Couch taunted Cates, asking “it’s not working?” A second later, Cates fired four shots. The entire encounter lasted exactly one minute.

“I am uninjured,” Cates said into his police radio. “Suspect down, multiple gunshot wounds.”

Couch lived for nine days. He died on Feb. 17, 2023.

According to Couch’s sister, “David was shot so many times he was no longer recognizable.” In an online fundraising appeal for the family, the sister, Lauren Metzger, added that, “We can’t understand why this happened, but we do know he did not have a gun anywhere around his person when he was discovered laying in the street by my parents and his best friend.”

For the nine days David Couch survived, a five-agency team convened to investigate the shooting, led by the Redding Police Department. Then, when Couch died, the Department of Justice shooting investigation team took over, and the local team ended its inquiry.

A view of the city of Redding from Cypress Avenue on April 8, 2026.

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Larry Valenzuela

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CalMatters

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More than three years have passed. Cates returned to work, according to the California Highway Patrol. His lawyer did not respond to messages from CalMatters.

Shasta County and the state of California have denied responsibility in the federal lawsuit filed by Couch’s family in the Eastern District of California. In its response, Shasta County said Cates is entitled to qualified immunity, which limits the civil liability of government officials, usually police officers.

The investigation from the Department of Justice took 1,199 days. It found “there is insufficient evidence to support a criminal prosecution of Officer Cates.”

Shorthanded from the start

Giving the state justice department more power to investigate law enforcement shootings was hailed as a big win for the police accountability movement when Newsom signed the law in 2020.

Former Assemblymember Kevin McCarty of Sacramento had proposed the legislation several times before. The fatal shooting of Stephon Clark by Sacramento police in 2018 lent momentum to McCarty’s effort – Clark’s family was outraged that Schubert, then the district attorney, didn’t press charges against officers in his killing.

George Floyd’s killing by a Minneapolis police officer in May 2020 emboldened a bipartisan push for police reform laws that ultimately carried McCarty’s bill through the Legislature and on to Newsom’s desk.

But within days of receiving their first case, the Justice Department’s shooting investigation teams knew they were undermanned.

“There were dozens of tasks and assignments that the … special agents could not accomplish because of limited staffing,” the department wrote in a budget request submitted to the Legislature in 2022.

Even before the shooting teams deployed, there were early warnings that the Justice Department might have bitten off more than it could chew.

The department asked for $26 million to pay for the new shooting investigation teams. The Legislature allotted half of that, about $13 million.

Former United States Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra on stage during a gubernatorial forum hosted by the California Hispanic Chamber of Commerce at the Sheraton Grand Sacramento Hotel in Sacramento on April 14, 2026.

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Miguel Gutierrez Jr.

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CalMatters

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The allocation “is significantly lower than our estimates and not enough resources to stand up professional teams to perform these new investigative and prosecutorial duties,” former Attorney General Xavier Becerra wrote to McCarty in January 2021, six months before the law took effect.

The department originally wanted four investigative teams — one each in Sacramento, Fresno, Los Angeles and Riverside. Instead, it got two, one North and one South.

One year into the program, shooting investigations were already lagging behind Bonta’s self-imposed timeline of one year.

In response, at the time, Bonta said: “We got the funding that we got, and we’re going to make it work. We have no choice. We have to find a way.”

Investigations first stretched past one year, then two years, and in 2025, a case reached beyond three years.

The California Department of Justice did not make anyone available for an interview about its backlog of police shooting investigations. In a written statement, an unnamed spokesperson said Bonta personally reviews every investigation.

“All investigations are unique in their complexity, and some may take longer than others to investigate and reach a conclusion.” the statement read.

“We’re continuously identifying ways to tighten timelines and improve our processes. It’s a balancing act — but it’s one we’re actively managing. Improvements are already taking hold. In the last two and a half years, we closed 9 times as many cases as were closed in the first two and a half years that the law was operational, and we remain committed to improving.”

Police chiefs want faster investigations

Many law enforcement leaders are growing impatient.

“Police chiefs across the state have consistently raised concerns and advocated for a timelier process, yet progress has been minimal,” said Sean Thuilliez, president of the California Police Chiefs Association.“When transparency is not accompanied by timeliness, the system risks falling short for everyone—eroding confidence, deepening mistrust, and prolonging uncertainty.

Law enforcement and conservative prosecutors were, perhaps predictably, opposed to losing local shooting investigations to the state. But even prosecutors who were pursuing police accountability were nervous about removing locals from the process.

With the state in control, local citizens have less power to protest or pressure their local leaders.

“Local concern, local protests, local interest is felt by local prosecutors,” said Cristine Soto DeBerry, who created a unit investigating police officers at the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office, where she was chief of staff. She is now the executive director of the progressive advocacy group Prosecutors Alliance.

“The very real pain of family and community members that experience that absolutely has an impact on a prosecutor and their willingness to take this crime seriously.”

Jeanelle Couch said that even though the DOJ investigation is over, she’s still hopeful about the lawsuits her family filed against the state, the county and the officer who killed her son.

“I want light on it,” Couch said. “That’s what I want. Just, justice.”

What does justice look like to her?

She looked at the ground.

“Now? I don’t know.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

Billy Gene Mills, one of the first Black politicians elected to the L.A. City Council, died on June 27 in his Leimert Park home. He was 96.

In a social media post, his son James Edward Mills wrote that his father had been struggling with failing health for years.

Mills was the first Black American to graduate from UCLA Law School in 1954 and went on to work as a civil rights attorney.

Los Angeles City Council members Gilbert Lindsay (left), Billy Mills (second from left) and Tom Bradley (second from right), pose for a photo with two unidentified men in City Hall council chambers around 1965.

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Made accessible through a grant from the John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation.

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LAPL

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He was elected to the city council in 1963, representing District 8, and served until 1974. Mills was one of the first three Black men, along with Tom Bradley and Gilbert Lindsay, to join the city council.

While on the council, Mills “led the city to renewed unity and cooperation after the tumultuous Watts Riots,” UCLA wrote in a statement that accompanied a Public Service Award given to him in 2003. His tenure, UCLA noted, saw the installation of paved alleys and streetlights throughout South Los Angeles for the first time.

In 1974, Mills was appointed as a judge to the Los Angeles Superior Court by then-Gov. Ronald Reagan.

Mills is survived by five children, nine grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

SEATTLE — Folarin Balogun, the star striker of the U.S. men's national soccer team, is eligible to play in the FIFA World Cup Round of 16 game against Belgium on Monday.

In an unusual move, FIFA's Disciplinary Committee announced Sunday that it would suspend Balogun's one-game red card ban for a probationary period of one year, allowing him to play in any remaining World Cup games.

In a brief statement, the committee did not give a reason for delaying the suspension. Balogun's probationary period will be revoked and the one-game suspension enforced if he commits "another infringement of a similar nature and gravity," FIFA said.

Balogun received the red card last Wednesday during the 2-0 U.S. victory over Bosnia-Herzegovina in the Round of 32 match. He had stepped on the ankle of Bosnian defender Tarik Muharemović as the two tangled while going after the ball.

The main referee initially declined to call any foul on the play, but after a replay review of slow-motion video and stills, a video referee recommended a red card. Afterward, U.S. coach Mauricio Pochettino criticized the decision to grant a red, calling the contact "a normal action in football that happened by accident."

U.S. Soccer had not filed a formal appeal. But a spokesperson told reporters Sunday that the organization had been "engaged" with FIFA during the deliberations.

In a statement, U.S. Soccer said it would accept the decision and is pleased Balogun will be eligible to play. "Our full attention is focused on the Round of 16 match against Belgium in Seattle, and we look forward to the continued support of our amazing fans," the statement read.

"Thank you to FIFA for doing what was right, and reversing a great injustice!" President Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.

The team learned of the decision on Sunday morning while riding a bus to a training session in Seattle.

"I'm mostly just happy for him, seeing that smile on his face. He deserves to be playing in this game," said U.S. winger Christian Pulisic, who called the referee's decision to give Balogun a red card "extremely harsh."

The decision to delay a one-game red card suspension is highly unusual, although there had been precedent already at this World Cup. Portugal star Cristiano Ronaldo received a three-game suspension last November for elbowing an opponent in a World Cup qualifying match. That suspension would have caused him to miss the first two games of the World Cup, but FIFA's Disciplinary Committee put the suspension on hold and allowed him to play.

It is unclear what factors may have led FIFA to allow Balogun to play.

Rules governing the use of VAR, or video assistant referee, say that slow-motion replay should only be used for "facts," such as the point of contact for physical fouls or handball calls, while normal-speed video should be used to judge the "intensity" of an offense.

However, on Wednesday, the video referee reviewed slow-motion footage and still images before recommending a red card.

Balogun's demeanor was notably calm and respectful after the controversial call. He shook hands with the referee after the game, and speaking to reporters on Friday, he said the contact had been unintentional but that he accepted the referee's decision.

"I never want to react out of anger and out of emotion," Balogun said. "There's still lots of people we're inspiring, little kids, boys and girls who are watching. We have to show the correct way to handle things even when you think it's unjust."

On Sunday, Pulisic told reporters he was impressed by how his teammate had handled himself. "Good things happen to people like that. And he was so positive and all for the team, and it just feels right," Pulisic said.

Monday's Round of 16 match against Belgium is one of the biggest in the history of the U.S. men's national team. A win would send the U.S. to the quarterfinals, matching the deepest run by the American men in the modern era of the World Cup.

Copyright 2026 NPR

The La Brea Tar Pits are heading into a multimillion-dollar renovation — that means the museum will have to close to the public for two years.

The history

Built in 1977, the George C. Page Museum at the La Brea Tar Pits has a special place in the hearts of Angelenos who’ve ever taken a field trip to see its massive mastodon skeletons or dire wolf skulls. Don’t worry — all that stuff is staying, said museum educator Kay Lai.

Why now?

“This museum, as beloved as it is, definitely needs that refresh. And I’m really excited for the next generation of kids that get to grow up and make new memories here with this new space,” Lai told LAist.

What’s going to be new?

Lai said the museum refresh will include a new focus on Zed, an 80% complete Columbian mammoth found at the site. With new outdoor classrooms and a 1-kilometer pedestrian pathway that will take visitors past excavation sites, the idea is to make research more visible to the public.

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

Both Mexico and England are undefeated in the 2026 World Cup. All of that will change on Sunday when the two teams meet at Estadio Azteca at 5 p.m. for the round of 16 match.

Mexico has not allowed one goal during their entire run in the tournament, and they will have the home-field advantage. That means England will not only have to take on the Mexico squad, but also 80,000 Mexican fans cheering from the stands.

Here are the free spots showing the game all over Koreatown, Pico Union and Westlake. There are no official park-sponsored watch parties in the local neighborhoods, according to the city’s Kick It In the Park schedule, but here are a few of the local sports bars, restaurants and other spots that will be showing the game.

Koreatown

• Guelaguetza
  3014 W Olympic Blvd.

  Mole coloradito over chips could fix anything. There are no reservations at the Oaxacan staple, so arrive early with your full party or you’ll be left standing (which is not the worst thing). The restaurant boasts a large screen, a dance-party vibe, micheladas and so much more. More info here.

• The Line Hotel
  3515 Wilshire Blvd. 

  The hotel has been showing games throughout the tournament and will have special offers on drinks and food. The venue will show the game on a large LED screen, with a live mariachi band and DJ set by Chulita Vinyl Club. There will also be a 90-minute unlimited margarita pitchers for $45 per person, according to the organizers. More information can be found here.
  

• Biergarten
  206 N Western Ave.

  The Biergarten is showing every match on multiple screens all over the bar. Their promise of Korean-German fusion is accompanied by a plethora of drinks on tap. More information can be found here.

• Eastwood
  611 S Western Ave.

  The country-inspired bar and restaurant will host the game on various screens around the venue and will serve bar towers and other specials. If the game isn’t enough of an emotional rollercoaster for fans, they can try their luck on the bar’s mechanical bull. Doors will open at 4:30 p.m. More information can be found here.

• Baja’s Grill Sports Cantina
  3250 Wilshire Blvd. Suite 103

  For flavors of Baja California during the game, this Cantina will be running specials and happy hour. The bar is surrounded by multiple screens and regularly hosts $35 open bars from 6 to 10 p.m. More information can be found here.

• Lock and Key 
  239 S Vermont Ave. 

  The cocktail den will be hosting the game alongside $8 drink specials for margaritas, palomas and vodka martinis. Multiple DJs will also be present during and after the game. More information can be found here.

• DJM Soju Bar
  3275 Wilshire Blvd.

  The restaurant will host the game both indoors and outdoors alongside food and drink specials. They serve a variety of plates, from spicy pork bulgogi and seafood soup to sweet-and-sour chicken. A wide variety of soju is also offered. Doors will open at 4 p.m. More information can be found here.

Westlake and Pico Union 

• Pulgarcito Family Restaurant 
  2500 W Pico Blvd.

  This family-owned restaurant serves pupusas, quesabirria and plato de birria, along with camarones a la diabla, plátanos fritos with beans and crema, and many more Salvadoran dishes. They also have cold drinks and multiple screens for the game. More information can be found here.
  

• Casa Gish Bac Cocina Oaxaqueña
  1436 S Vermont Ave.

  The Oaxacan restaurant will be showing the games on multiple TVs, as well as on a projector. Happy hour is from 2 to 6 p.m., right before kickoff. Deals include $5 beers and $2 tacos. They’re also sweetening the celebrations with a free shot with every Mexico goal. More information can be found here.
  

• Huicho’s Bakery
  1250 Vermont Ave.

  The local bakery will be showing the game outside of their shop on one TV. They offer a variety of Central American and Mexican food, as well as pastries and bread.
  

• Xecul Restaurante Guatemalteco
  1051 S Alvarado Street

  The Guatemalan restaurant will show the game on two TVs indoors. They offer a wide variety of traditional Guatemalan flavors, like their el shuco xecul, as well as fusion plates like chow mein mixto.
  

• Cafe con Ron
  819 S Flower Street

  The Mexican seafood and brunch location will be showing the game on TVs around its cantina area. They offer fish tacos, quesabirria and drink specials. More information can be found here.